A venue to ongoingly "storm" alternatives to milk bags?

Question

Canada uses 1.3L bags to deliver milk. Each set of 3 such bags are enclose in another bag. It results in incomprehensible volumes of waste.

I searched the internet to see why we haven't found a better alternative. The 2 main alternatives are not great.

One alternative is re-usable jugs. The problem is keeping them clean and the impossibility of assuring that the jugs haven't been mis-used for unpalatable things.

The second alternative is Tetra Pak style containers. That seems less preferable.

These, and less likely alternatives, are presented here

Every few years, my environmental crime punches me in the gut, and I look again for new developments. But the alternatives have been this bleak for many years.

Is there a venue where one can continue batting at the challenge in discussion? A succinct Q&A forum like Stack Exchange is not suitable for "storming" and evolving ideas.

Answer 1

For decades in the UK (and probably other countries) milk was delivered to the door by a milkman in glass bottles.

You kept the empty bottles, and left them out on the door step for the milkman to collect when he made the next delivery. The bottles would be washed and sterilised by the diary and reused.

Whilst most milk in the UK is now bought in plastic bottles from the supermarket, some areas do still have a milkman service (https://www.mcqueensdairies.co.uk/product/1-pint-semi-skimmed-glass/), delivering milk in glass bottles. It seems that a new solution isn't what's needed here, but to go back to the old one!

Answer 2

It would be totally ridiculous to distribute milk in reusable bags.

Milk is about as unsustainable drink as you can make. Cows emit huge amounts of methane to atmosphere, and feeding those cows requires massive amounts of land that has resulted in destruction of nearly every non-human species on this planet. It's totally irrelevant whether or not the milk is in a reusable or recyclable container. The container is almost 0% of the total environmental effects of milk. Almost 100% of the total environmental effects of milk are due to methane and land use.

Not only that, but even if you replace milk with something better, such as oat-based drink that tries to emulate milk, it's still irrelevant whether it's in a container that's wholly or partially plastic-based. One liter of oat "milk" produces about kilogram of carbon dioxide when made. Even if it's in a container that's completely made of plastic, the container for one liter probably weighs around 50 grams at most. It's also possible to use a cardboard container that's only lined with a very thin layer of plastic to make it impermeable to liquids. Even in the worst case, container made of completely 100% plastic, it has around 4 kg/kg of CO₂ footprint, so 50 gram container would cause 200 grams of CO₂ emissions. Compare that to 1 kg of CO₂ emissions caused by the contents of said container.

Also we can't have 100% renewable electricity production. It's mandatory to have reliable electricity production methods that allow producing electricity even when sun doesn't shine and there are no winds. It's impossible (uneconomical) to transfer electricity over long distances so the claim that it's always windy or sunny somewhere doesn't save us. Therefore, we should encourage every electricity production method that allows producing electricity in complete calm darkness.

One such electricity production method is waste-to-energy. It is not dependent on weather.

I will happily continue buying massive amounts of products in plastic-based containers, fully knowing that they will be burned to energy in the future at some point of time when it's calm and dark.

Before someone complains about CO₂ emissions of burning that plastic waste, let me explain that only about 15% of electricity needs to come from sources that work in worst possible weather conditions (dark and calm), and much of that is hydropower so probably around 7.5% of the power needs to come from combusting fuels. Plastic waste has probably around 300 g / kWh CO₂ emissions and 40% energy efficiency meaning 750 g / kWh of electricity produced. If only 7.5% of power comes from such waste-to-energy plants, and the rest comes from CO₂-free sources, that's only 56 g / kWh. If all electricity production of this planet was only 56 g / kWh, we would effectively have no climate change.

Also it's possible to capture the CO₂ emissions of waste-to-energy plants and store them and perhaps reuse later, combining with hydrogen to create artificial methane that can later be burned to energy, capturing the CO₂ again, and never emitting that CO₂ to the atmosphere in any part of the fully cyclical energy generation scheme.

Therefore, it's feasible to produce 0 g CO₂ / kWh from waste-to-energy plants effectively.

Your plastic waste may be fully environmentally friendly after all, having no negative environmental effects.

Also it's possible to make plastic from trees. You don't need crude oil to make plastic. If you make plastic from trees, then burn it in a waste-to-energy plant, then capture the carbon dioxide, it will have negative emissions.

The only problem with plastics is that if it gets ever into oceans, it will become microplastics. If you handle plastic waste properly, that's not an issue.